The new Jersey Mike's franchise opened this morning with a "ribbon" (in this case, a strip of sandwich paper wrap) cutting.
The location on Lewiston Road is in the parking lot of the former Kmart store. The new shop's neighbors are Starbucks and Tropical Smoothie. Those businesses have not yet opened.
Pictured are Jonathan Duque, Marlon Duque, Brooklyn Zeier, Kayla Sexton, Evan Mayer, Town of Batavia board member Patti Michalak, and Betsy Mihm, representing Special Olympics.
Mayer is the franchise owner. Mayer and his staff in the photo are all from New Jersey. The beachballs are meant to represent the Jersey Shore.
The Kmart property is being developed by Florida-based Benderson Development. The company is also planning a second building for similar businesses in the parking lot. No plans have been announced yet for the former Kmart building itself.
Attorney Peter Sorgi goes over the final site plan for Town of Batavia planners for a new Tractor Supply location on Lewiston Road. Photo by Howard Owens.
Town planners in Batavia heard from multiple Lewiston Road residents about potential traffic issues and a perceived lack of transparency before the board voted to approve a site plan for a new Tractor Supply location.
The site plan approval was the last step in a long process for developers, who are building a location at 8727 Lewiston Road, which will allow the company to close its smaller, older store on East Main Street Road in the Town of Batavia.
Lewiston Road residents expressed concern that the busy corridor already produces a significant number of accidents, a few deadly, and the town is planning too many projects for the area.
"We are not upset about potential growth in Batavia, the potential of people moving into the area, all of those things," said Tanni Bromley. "But these projects that you're bringing affect the people that have lived here for 30 years who are putting equity in the properties that will be affected by these things."
A proposed road that connects Lewiston Road with Veterans Memorial Drive, running behind The Home Depot, has been part of the master plan for decades. The Tractor Supply project will start to make the first part of that road a reality, with some other potential developer building out the remainder of the road for some future, as yet, unknown project.
The property behind The Home Depot is farmland owned by the Call family. It is earmarked in the master plan for commercial development.
So is the property on the other side of Lewiston Road, with another road proposal to connect Lewiston with Route 5.
There is also the potential of a solar farm going in near Lewiston Road and the Thruway.
"It doesn't seem transparent to the people affected, because you're not allowing us to know the information ahead of time," Bromley said. "I understand you have a process as far as lead agencies and all of those things that need to be approved. And you have to take it all into account at the same time. Otherwise, the traffic study that you paid for is totally obsolete. It doesn't make any sense to do one traffic study. And then another traffic study when something was already built, because it didn't take into account the other traffic study that might have to happen. It's all connected."
"We are not upset about potential growth in Batavia, the potential of people moving into the area, all of those things," said Tanni Bromley. Photo by Howard Owens.
Terry Marshall said, "As everybody's talked about, you can't take each piece at a time. You have to look at the full plan when you're doing these things. This piece of a road here is going to go all the way up to Veterans. Now it's going to go all the way across the street, and it's obviously a very dangerous area. Right now, we're all very concerned."
Other residents raised similar issues.
Board member Steve Tanner noted that it isn't possible to do traffic studies for projects that don't exist.
"I think the issue is we haven't seen any of that, nor have there been any studies that say what that road would look like," Tanner said. "What would be the proposed businesses along the roadway? What kind of traffic? Would they connect to the roadway? What would it do to the traffic that would make improvements required or not required? We don't have any information. I can't show you something we don't have. Is there some sort of plan to put a road there? I don't know. It sounds like there is. It's in the plan, but it might be 10 years from now. How do I study so it might not even ever happen?"
Board Chair Kathy Jasinski said that the board has rules and laws it must follow that limited its ability to act in the way, perhaps, residents expected.
"If we were to turn a project down because we didn't like it, the town could be sued, and probably would be," Jasinski said. "We have to make sure it fits in the comprehensive plan, that it meets all the requirements of the town. And that's what we're here to do. We can't say who can buy land or sell land or any of those things. We're just here to review the projects."
Town Engineer Steve Mountain said that while these potential changes have been on the books for a while, there have also been studies, and there will be more done.
"There are a lot of accidents and the whole corridor of Lewiston Road," Mountain said. "As I mentioned, several meetings ago. We've done a traffic study for just Tractor Supply, but we also have in the works, a full corridor study, which will identify all of those future needs for all the future expansion."
After public comments, Peter Sorgi, attorney for the developers, made his planned presentation in advance on the board vote on the proposed site plan.
He noted the original application for the project was submitted seven months ago, on Oct. 4, and since then, the developers have gone through six required steps, with public meetings all along the way, to get to this final approval stage.
The project has been to the County Planning Board. It received an area variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. It's been through the environmental review process. It had traffic studies completed. It's been approved for a water hook-up by the county in accordance with the county's Smart Growth plan.
After his presentation, the board approved the site plan by a unanimous roll-call vote with a contingency for final engineering review.
Michael Schrader shares his concerns about the approval process and the potential traffic issues for a new Tractor Supply location on Lewiston Road, Batavia. Photo by Howard Owens.
The northbound lane of Lewiston Road, between Main and Park, was resurfaced and re-striped today to create a turning lane for the new Tim Horton's location. Traffic was delayed in the area during the work.
There is great beauty to be found in Genesee County, but the best shots can't always be captured from public roads. Once in a while, I see a shot I want, but need to get permission to walk across private property. Today, I drove out to a house on Lewiston Road because I knew there was a barn I liked, also I've been interested in getting the best angle on the shot above. For both pictures, the best shot wouldn't come from the roadside. Fortunately, the landowner was home and kind enough to let me wander around on his property.
A police official has confirmed that a body found near the Blockbuster location on Lewiston Road was an apparent suicide (see update below).
The victim was identified as James Maher, 27, a VA Home resident.
His family, from Mechanicville, was notified.
The official could answer no further questions and said the police department is planning a press release for Monday morning.
His body was apparently found in some shrubs near the business.
UPDATE 6:54 p.m.: Det. Pat Corona of the Batavia Police Department called a little while ago to emphasize that the police have not yet determined the cause of Mr. Maher's death. While suicide has not been ruled out, a "by the numbers" investigation has yet to arrive at a conclusive determination. There was no obvious signs of trauma, Det. Corona said. Within days, some initial facts will be available from the medical examiner, but it will take weeks (as usual) for toxicology reports to come back.
We've learned from multiple sources -- though there is yet no official confirmation -- that a body was found about 10:15 p.m. outside the Blockbuster store on Lewiston Road in Batavia.
The City of Batavia Police Department has not yet released a statement about the discovery and there is no information available at this time about the condition of the body or exactly where it was located.
Our news partner WBTA has attempted to learn more information about the discovery.
Here's one e-mail account we received at 11: 52 p.m. about the situation:
I was just at Sportos and was told that there was a body found behind Blockbuster. There was police going to the scene at about 10:15. A news van is present right now with about 3 police cars. This was confirmed by a Trooper going into the restaurant. He could tell us no more.
UPDATE: In a story posted at 5:27 p.m., the Buffalo News reports that officials are pointing to a smoldering cigarette as the likely cause of the fire.
Genesee County Emergency Management Services coordinator Timothy J. Yaeger said the victim's mother, Judy Clark, 41, had been smoking in an nclosed porch about half an hour before the fire broke out ...
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WBTA reports that a discarded cigarette may have been the cause of the fire Friday morning that took the life of 17-year-old Erik Mooney.
The investigation continues and no conclusion has been reached.
The News 8 video report (warning: pre-roll advertising) says that Erik suffered from asthma and that may have contributed to his in ability escape the smoke-filled house.
The Buffalo News story includes quotes from officials and students at Erik's high school.
Erik was known among his classmates for his sense of humor and love of video games.
Fellow sophomore Roosevelt Little, 16, who shared several classes with Erik, described him as “laid back,” someone who loved to crack jokes and brighten others’ lives. Roosevelt said Erik was capable of getting all of the students he shared a table with in the cafeteria to laugh.
Erik was well-liked among his peers and became more outgoing as he got to know others, Roosevelt said.
“Some students were crying when they found out [about Erik’s death],” Roosevelt said. “Some were trying to hold in emotions. A lot left school early today.”
“Sometimes it feels like these things happen all at once,” he added, referring to another recent tragedy in the community.
The D&C story hasn't been updated, but a video has been added (again, pre-roll advertising).
